B. WALDENFELS, Humankind as a being of limits. RThPh 2005/IV, p. 297-310.
It is from the concept of order that the author sets out to think humankind, defined not by such and such supposed properties that distinguish what is human from what is not, but as the place where limits – constitutional of all order – are instituted, marked out and shifted. Thus every time humans give themselves to thought, they are responding to an order. They do not have exclusive possession of this or that feature, distinguishing themselves imperviously from what is extraneous; rather here they are seen at the place of a continual tracking of limits between what is of themselves and what is not. Far from defining themselves as holding a certain position in an order, they are bothered and thrown off centre by the extraneous, from which they are forever distinguishing themselves. So “humankind as a being of limits” implies that humans are automatically situated at the limit.